United Nations

The Statistical Yearbook is an annual compilation of a wide range of international economic, social and environmental statistics on over 200 countries and areas, compiled from sources including UN agencies and other international, national and specialised organisations. The 53rd issue contains data available to the Statistics Division as of 31 October 2009 and presents them in over 70 tables on topics such as: agriculture, forestry and fishing, balance of payments, communication, development assistance, education, energy, environment, finance, gender, industrial production, international merchandise trade, international tourism, labour force, manufacturing, national accounts, population, science and technology, transport, and wages and prices. The number of years of data shown in the tables varies from one to ten, with most tables covering 1996 to 2008. Accompanying the tables are technical notes providing brief descriptions of major statistical concepts, definitions and classifications.

The report shows that some hard-won gains are being eroded by the climate, food and economic crises. But even though the economic crisis took a heavy toll on jobs and incomes around the world, the world is still on track to achieve the MDG target of cutting the rate of extreme poverty in half by 2015, the report notes. It also cites big gains in getting children into primary schools in many poor countries, especially in Africa, strong interventions in addressing AIDS, malaria and child health, and a good chance to reach the target for access to clean drinking water.

The whole world has been talking about carbon credits, carbon trading and emissions targets. But not enough has been said about the people whose activities contribute to those emissions or about those who will be most affected by climate change, especially women. How do population dynamics affect greenhouse gases and climate change? Will urbanisation and an ageing population help or hinder efforts to adapt to a warming world? And could better reproductive health care and improved relations between women and men make a difference in the fight against climate change? The linkages between population and climate change are in most cases complex and indirect. But the nature of these linkages is becoming clear enough to arrive at the key recommendations of this report for mitigating climate change and aiding adaptation to it: elicit a new level of engagement by governments in the areas of population and development, provide access to reproductive health and actively support gender equality.

Official Records of the Report of the International Law Commission: Sixty-second Session (3 May-4 June and 5 July-6 August 2010).

While annual economic growth rates have frequently reached double digits in Asia, in the Pacific the rate of economic growth has been slow, in some cases below the rate of population growth. The Pacific faces a multifaceted issue linked to slow fertility transition that results in high dependency ratios, rapid population growth (unless it is reduced by emigration) and a substantial youth bulge, or even increasing youth cohorts. This paper will examine the case of the demographic window of opportunity in the Pacific in relation to age structures, fertility trends, reproductive health and population to related policies. It will also consider the conditions for hastening the onset of the window of opportunity and include a rapid comparison with Asia to show the extent of the differences within the Asia-Pacific region.

The Finnish case of industrial renewal from essentially natural-resource-based industries toward machinery, engineering, electronics and ICT is of particular relevance for Latin-American countries. The study explains the crucial role of the Finnish innovation system and the long term public-private partnership in the industrial transformation towards a higher knowledge intensity and value added economy. The report recognizes the importance of innovation investments, but estimates as equally essential consistent long term strategies on facilitating conditions to build up a cooperative, confidential, and dynamic innovation environment.

At the high-level segment of the Fifty-second session of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs, held on 11 and 12 March 2009, Heads of State, ministers and government representatives from 132 States gathered to evaluate progress made since 1998 towards meeting the goals and targets established at the twentieth special session of the General Assembly, devoted to countering the world drug problem together, to identify future priorities and areas requiring further action and goals and targets to be established for drug control beyond 2009, and to adopt a political declaration and other measures to enhance international cooperation. The adoption of the Political Declaration and Plan of Action some 10 years after the twentieth special session of the General Assembly of 1998 has given fresh impetus to international drug control.

Given that a healthier future needs urgent global action for smart, sustained investment to improve wastewater management, this report tackles the current challenges faced in wastewater management. Part I of the report addresses the pressing challenges faced in the management of wastewater and how it may be influenced by population growth, urbanisation, and climate change. Part II looks at possible solutions regarding these challenges and how current techniques can be modernized through innovation.

Les deliberations de la Commission du droit du travail durant la cinquante-cinquieme session (2003) concerne les themes suivants (volume II): Responsabilites des Etats Actes unilateraux des Etats, protection diplomatique programme a long terme du travail de la commission.

This book contains the main international commercial contracts that small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) will need in their trade transactions. All contracts are harmonized in structure as well as in content through the insertion in each of identical boilerplate or recurring clauses. Each Model Contract indicates the basic elements that a non to specialist should fill in or should consider when entering into an agreement. The nine model forms and the boilerplate clauses were selected on the basis of a worldwide survey of representative institutions of SMEs. The Model Contract will be supplemented in due course with training material developed ITC.

The Compendium is a unique collection of current ICT applications being used directly by or in partnership with governments, governmental institutions and the private sector around the world to support administration and public service, while addressing governance challenges. The Compendium also presents private sector ICT applications that are available in the marketplace. This Volume 2 of the Compendium, the second in the series, focuses on m to technology software products and applications in the areas of human security and business development that are being used in both developed and developing countries. It is important to note that m to technology is evolving extremely fast. Some of the software applications presented may have already been modified and new versions been released.

In accordance with Article 102 of the Charter and the relevant General Assembly Resolutions, every treaty and international agreement registered or filed and recorded with the Secretariat since 1946 is published in the United Nations Treaty Series. At present, the collection includes about 30,000 treaties reproduced in their authentic languages, together with translations into English and French, as necessary. The Treaty Series, where treaties are published in the chronological order of registration, also provides details about their subsequent history (i.e., participation in a treaty, reservations, amendments, termination, etc.). Comprehensive Indices covering 50 to volume-lots are published separately. A Standing Order service is available for the Series and out to of to print volumes are available on microfiche.

Issued in support of the five-year review of the Mauritius Strategy of Implementation for the sustainable development of Small Island Developing States (SIDS), the report highlights the vulnerabilities of SIDS and recent trends in their sustainable development. The key areas covered by the report are: climate change, disaster management, trade and finance, tourism, energy, natural resources, and social development. It also provides a visual summary of progress made by SIDS in attaining the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), based on analysis performed by UNDP and ESCAP.

This publication contains the full text of Resolution No.35 on standardized vocabulary for radio-connections in inland navigation adopted by the UNECE Working Party on Inland Water Transport in 1996. It includes the corrections made to the text in 1997 by Correction 1. The publication reflects the Resolution in English, French, Russian, German and Dutch. Each language version is marked with tabs of different colour. For ease of reference the pages of each language version correspond numerically. The Vocabulary has been prepared with a view to improving the safety of navigation and the piloting of vessels, and standardizing the vocabulary used for communications in inland navigation.

Over the last 35 years the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) has assessed major disasters in the Latin American region. Based on those exercises, which that have been conducted in a systematic manner using an evolving but comparable methodology over the years, there is now historical evidence of the economic consequences these events have on the region’s economies. This evidence-based approach sheds light on the link between economic performance, development dynamics and how disasters, as “external” shocks, generate lingering effects of different relative importance. The publication describes economic impact of disasters in Latin America and the Caribbean, presents evidence of environmental damage and losses associated with disasters, and assesses impact of disasters on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

This evaluation covers the period from 2002 to 2008. UNDP demonstrated comparative strengths in the domain of governance (support to the parliament and decentralization). Another important contribution was to develop innovative pilot activities: the success obtained through multifunctional platforms to generate power and electricity in rural areas, the development of non-timber forest products or the support to civil society initiatives to fight HIV to AIDS epidemics have served as models for a number of other interventions and have attracted significant financing.

The purpose of the present publication is to provide countries with a broad overview of census and survey data editing methodology and to provide information for concerned officials on the use of various approaches to census editing. It is also intended to encourage countries to retain a history of their editing experiences, promote communication among subject matter and data processing specialists, and document the activities undertaken in the current census or survey in order to avoid duplicating effort during the next census or survey. The Handbook also reviews advantages and disadvantages of manual and computer to assisted editing.